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Hub Network (alternate)
NOTE: '''This is my take on what the Hub Network might have been if it wasn't relaunched as Discovery Family in 2014. The '''Hub Network (originally The Hub) is an American pay television channel owned jointly by Discovery, Inc. and Hasbro, with its headquarters in Burbank, California. The network first launched in the fall of 1996 as Discovery Kids, a digital cable offshoot of Discovery Channel which originally dedicated its lineup to science, nature, and adventure-themed programs at kids 6-11. Following a significant channel drift which soon led to a fully automated lineup, Hasbro announced a joint venture with Discovery to relaunch the channel as The Hub on October 10, 2010; it would later be rebranded under its current name on January 13, 2014. Hub Network is currently marketed as a "family-friendly" service, airing a mix of animated and live-action series geared towards children and teenagers alongside feature films and reruns of older television shows during the evening hours. As of January 2016, approximately 76 million American households receive the Hub Network. History On April 30, 2009, toy manufacturer and media company Hasbro announced that it had formed a joint venture with Discovery Communications to create a new, multiplatform family-oriented television brand to replace Discovery's existing channel Discovery Kids. Under the arrangement, Discovery would be responsible for handling advertising sales and distribution for the new channel, while Hasbro was in charge of acquiring and producing programming. While the new network planned to maintain educational series (including those carried over from Discovery Kids), plans called for new original programs based off Hasbro-owned franchises such as G.I. Joe, My Little Pony, Transformers, and game shows based upon its board games. In January 2010, Discovery and Hasbro announced that the new network would be known as The Hub; two months later, the companies announced that The Hub would officially launch on October 10, 2010. The network would continue to target Discovery Kids' main demographic of children aged 2 through 14, but also planned to feature a primetime block with family-oriented programming. Veteran television executive, and the network's president and chief executive officer Margaret Loesch stated that The Hub's goal was to be "vibrant" and "diverse" in its programming, and that the channel would not purely be a marketing vehicle for Hasbro products. On October 10, 2010 at 10:00 a.m. ET, The Hub officially launched with "Sneak Peak Sunday", a lineup that gave viewers "a preview of some of the new and entertaining programs they'll see over the coming months." Some of the channel's launch programming would include the game show Family Game Night, animated series Pound Puppies, My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic and Transformers: Prime, reruns of the Jim Henson series Fraggle Rock, and the preschool-oriented programs Maryoku Yummy ''and ''The WotWots. In a June 2011 debt filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Discovery Communications indicated that the channel may be worth less than previously believed, based on low viewership figures. The management of The Hub subsequently underwent a fair value analysis of the channel. A Discovery Communications spokesperson considered the action to be "a pro-forma accounting exercise", and noted that Discovery felt "very positive, and encouraged by The Hub's early days' performance, and ability to grow its audience in the future. In March 2013, The Hub picked up its first work from POW! Entertainment, Stan Lee's Mighty 7, an animated pilot movie to be aired in early 2014. The network also began to phase in an amended branding as the Hub Network, which would later take full effect on January 13, 2014, in which the channel introduced an updated logo and a new imaging campaign, "Making Family Fun, developed by the Los Angeles-based agency Oishii Creative. Programming Hub Network's programming lineup is comprised mostly of animated series and live-action shows tied to media franchises owned by Hasbro itself, such as Pound Puppies, Stretch Armstrong and the Flex Fighters, and Transformers: Rescue Bots. The network has also produced and acquired new original series unrelated to Hasbro properties, including The Aquabats! Super Show!, Dan Vs., R. L. Stine's The Haunting Hour, SheZow, and Parents Just Don't Understand. One of the network's most noteworthy series has been My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, an animated series developed and first produced by Lauren Faust, associated with the then-recent reboot of Hasbro's My Little Pony toy franchise. The series not only became The Hub's highest-rated program within its target demographic of young girls, but attracted an unexpectedly significant cult following among teens and adults. Hub Network has also aired reruns of other outside series, such as Fraggle Rock, and various Warner Bros. Animation series, such as Batman Beyond, Batman: The Animated Series, Superman: The Animated Series and Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, Animaniacs and Tiny Toon Adventures. Current programming Original animated series (from Hasbro) * Blazing Team: Masters of Yo Kwon Do (November 13, 2015 – present) * Hanazuki: Full of Treasures ''(January 12, 2017 – present) * ''Littlest Pet Shop: A World Of Our Own (April 14, 2018 – present) * My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (October 10, 2010 – present) * Stretch Armstrong and the Flex Fighters ''(December 1, 2017 – present) Non-Hasbro original animated series * ''It's Chris! ''(January 19, 2015 – present) * ''Stan Lee's Mighty 7 ''(April 3, 2017 – present) Original live-action series (from Hasbro) * ''Family Game Night (October 10, 2010 – present) Non-Hasbro original live-action series * Parents Just Don't Understand ''(August 23, 2014 – present) * ''R.L. Stine's The Haunting Hour (October 29, 2010 – present) Acquired animated series * Acquired live-action series * ''The Zoo ''(September 4, 2017 – present) Category:TV Channels Category:Alternate Category:Hub Network